Legendary British special effects wizard Stuart Freeborn, who is responsible for some of science fiction's most memorable on-screen characters, has passed away at the age of 98.

Freeborn, who made the ape-men from Stanley Kubrick's 2001, will be remembered most for his contributions in the Star Wars franchise, where his puppet-building and make-up skills led development on the characters of Chewbacca, Yoda and Jabba the Hutt.

Freeborn was also responsible for many of the aliens in the Mos Eisley Cantina sequence, the ewoks and the native creatures of Hoth, the wampa and tauntaun.

It was almost a year ago that the man credited with designing many of these characters, artist Ralph Macquarrie, passed away at the age of 82.